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The IndiGo brand story

If good branding
begins in a name then IndiGo airlines had quite a launch pad. Cleverly couched
within the name is a play on ‘India’ and ‘Go’ -- a smart shorthand for a nation
where, according to government data domestic air travel grew 19 percent in 2010
to 52.02 million passengers on the go.

This upstart of an
airline, just five years old, has deposed the maharaja -- Air India’s domestic
arm --and is poised to pip the liquor baron -- Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher
Airlines.

In a report recently
released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, IndiGo and Kingfisher had
an even tally of 18.6 percent of the market share in 2010.

In one of the world’s
fastest-growing aviation markets that’s no sloppy seconds.

Business + branding = buzz

Last month IndiGo penned
a US$16 billion deal for the staggered delivery of 180 new eco-efficient Airbus A320
aircrafts.

It’s also just got the
green light to launch flights to international destinations. By August 2011 Dubai,
Muscat, Singapore and Bangkok will be added to their flight roster.

But the buzz isn’t all
business-y.

IndiGo has become the kind of brand that spawns customer
appreciation pages on Facebook, an unlikely acclaim for an Indian airline where
service-oriented brands usually get flak for failures, not fans for their
flair.

IndiGo has a summarily
stated three-point corporate mantra that is trotted out regularly in press
releases: “Offer fares that are always low, flights that are on time, and a
courteous, hassle-free travel experience.”

Going about the
business of image building from scratch, Mohit Jayal, business director at W+K,
has been working with IndiGo co-founders Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal from
2005, the year before IndiGo took off.

They decided people
shouldn’t feel cheap when they buy cheap.

A young fleet for a young India

Jayal describes the
target consumer as “not a demographic but a psychographic” and the brand as
having an abundance of crossover appeal.

Reusuable cookie jars. For IndiGo W+K use plenty
of young, urban style cues, demonstrating an abiding respect for the
fundamentals while indulging the cool quotient.

Step-less stairs,
handicap-accessible boarding ramps, q-buster scanners for passengers
traveling without check-in luggage, were all on the manifesto from the get-go.

Luggage stickers read
‘Fragile’ over a little heart-shaped graphic, so cute that Jayal says kids like
to steal them. IndiGo’s airsickness bags urge the passenger to "Get well
soon" -- a device adapted by Jet,
whose bags now also ask you to "Take care." Cookies packaged in pretty pastel
pink and blue tins move like hot cakes.

This month, W+K ran an
agency-wide competition for a veggie burger. A nouveau-cuisine version of the
Gujarati dabeli won and it’s
available on aircrafts now, probably with a cute pun on ‘bun’ like this one.

The secondary products
are practically a spin-off industry now.

“When a brand has such
a strong personality, it makes sense to extend it,” says Jayal.

An airline passenger
is perhaps the most captive of all audiences. But Jayal clarifies, “It’s not
just pack ‘em in and sell ‘em stuff. The idea is to offer differentiated
products that people actually want.”

“What characterizes
the IndiGo gang is that they’re very keen to get it right, they’re obsessive
about details,” says Jayal. “Even the tape that separates our (check-in counter
or boarding) queues reads ‘no red tape’” Jayal adds. It is, of course, a
precise shade of indigo.

This is how we do it

W+K had to be careful
to not inundate the consumer with on-board and terminal messaging, but a television commercial which premiered in March 2010 pulled out all the
stops.

The smash hit commercial
for the airline has the tagline “on-time,” selected from the trinity of tenets
that the company rests on (low-cost, on-time, courteous). IndiGo consciously steers
clear of budget badges of honor -- presumably cost will always factor into a customer’s
choice.

With conveyor belts
and assembly lines and workers indistinguishable in their uniform spiffiness,
the ad projects assembly line efficiency. Secondly, the swell bell-hops,
sexy receptionists, slick executives and smiling airline crew are more a
montage from mid-century London and Paris than a reflection of India 2010.

But such is the power
of top class advertising, that it matters not that the voice-over is firang and that the Indians look more like
well-sunned Europeans.

Bob, hat, scarf, badge, check, check, check, check.Toward the end of the
TVC, the voiceover quips in an upbeat voice, “We become the world’s most
powerful economy … on time.”

And so brand IndiGo is
served up with a side of futuristic patriotic pride. How’s that for subliminal?

Apparently the
flight crew were so enamored of their slick on-screen projections, that fashion
designer Rajesh Pratap Singh and make-up and hair artist Ambika Pillai were recruited
to reinterpret the reel-life look for the real-life IndiGo crew.

In August last year female
flight attendants trotted out in the new uniform -– Pratap’s
single-piece navy-blue tunic somewhere between a tennis and a shirt dress, with
a thin indigo belt highlighting the waist.

Pillai’s flirty bob hair pieces and brick
red lip and nail color, set against nude eyes with a pull out eye liner complete the look.

Compare it to budget carrier JetLite’s new
uniform, launched around the same time, which puts its girls
in collared men’s jacket and pants. Who wants to see that?

Said the company press
release, “India’s coolest airline now has India’s
hottest looking crew!”

The future’s looking bright

Jayal speaks
feelingly about creating a new global brand with a ‘made in India’ sticker.

“[IndiGo offers] operational
excellence, cost control, great experience,” Jayal
says. “The Indians are coming, not
just with an under-priced product but one that’s experientially
as good if not better than anything out there.”